Joe Salisbury news: Being the world No 1 in doubles is “pretty cool”

Lucy Roberts
Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram

British star Joe Salisbury will become the world No 1 doubles player on Monday, overtaking Mate Pavic after the Croatian lost his match in the round of 16 at the Miami Open.

Now Salisbury has taken his place at the top of the table after putting on some amazing performances which have seen him and his partner Rajeev Ram make it to the quarter finals of the Miami Open, semi finals of the Indian Wells Masters and the same stage at the Australian Open.

Despite all this, the 29-year-old is remaining humble and is happy he can now as least call himself a former world No 1 in the years to come.

“World No 1, it’s surreal when you say it out loud, even in the last couple of years when I was moving up the rankings the focus has always been on winning tournaments and trying to get better – the rankings are a by product of doing well at the big events, but this is something very different,” the US Open champion explained to the LTA website.

“I guess this is more of a proud moment, to have that No 1 next to your name in the rankings will be pretty crazy and it’s different compared to winning a Slam, that’s more the excitement of the moment, the thrill of it.

“Winning that last match in the final of a big tournament is more of an instant gratification, but this has been more of a slow build up, we knew the guys ahead of us had a lot of points to defend, Mektic and Pavic, had a lot of points to defend over these last few months and there was always a very good chance to overtake them – now it has happened and that’s pretty cool.”

Salisbury’s rise to No 1 again highlights the amount of British talent in tennis, as there was the US Open last year which was won by Emma Raducanu and Cameron Norrie has been very successful so far this season on the ATP Tour and he made it to the final at the Mexican Open.

This success is something Salisbury hopes will carry on and go from strength to strength.

“A lot of British players are doing really well now and we should celebrate that,” Salisbury added.

“When nobody won Wimbledon for a long time, everyone was critical of that, then Andy Murray won it and ended the wait, then nobody won a Slam for a while and then Emma did that last year so we should enjoy the good moments and celebrate the success as much as we are critical when things are perceived to be going badly.

“There are a lot of good things going on in British tennis and the future is bright as well, I’m sure Emma is going to be a great player for a long time and guys like Jack Draper are coming through now and we have a lot of good British players on the doubles tour as well – hopefully the success we have enjoyed in recent years will continue for some time to come.”

Salisbury and Ram will next play John Isner and Hubert Hurkacz tomorrow in their quarter final tie at the Miami Open.

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